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| Tuesday-Wednesday / 4-5 July 2006 | ||
UP Aerospace
Ready to Make Southwest Regional Spaceport Official.
The company that recently called itself
"America's affordable space rocket launch resource" now calls itself
"the world's premier supplier of low-cost space access," and even
has a rocket rounding the Moon in its prominent website banner graphic.
Playing the banner's presentation shows images of the entire solar
system. UP Aerospace may be going places fast. Late last week, the
company announced 14
August as the firm set date of its
maiden
rocket
mission, SpaceLoft Mission-1,
which is also
the
long-awaited
first
Southwest Regional Spaceport mission.
From observations over the past year, it is apparent UP Aerospace
has refined the way it presents itself. The firm's homepage has become
an active marketing tool, including a streamlined bullet display
of what the Hartford CT-based company offers -- rocketing as much
as 50 kgs of payload as far up as
225
km. "We're like an airplane, but instead of flying horizontally,
we fly up and back," says UP Aerospace CEO Eric Knight. "We don't
have seats; we have payload sections." The August debut features
a mixed-bag payload from private industry, individuals, and educational
institutions, with at least five university and forty high school
experiments. "This launch
will
put
New Mexico's spaceport on the map, and will get us one step further
toward getting our FAA license," says New Mexico Economic Development
Department Secretary Rick Homans. Knight says UP Aerospace will try
to launch its second mission during the 'X Prize Cup' in October,
and eventually wants to send 30 missions to space annually. The 14
August launch was originally planned for 27 March (LED Yr
5, #176; Yr
6, #24),
but experienced several setbacks. Info http://upaerospace.com.
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